The first thing that I noticed was that Phil Baroni’s name, who went heavily into promoting the show, was lacking from the broadcast tonight. Apparently, he suffered a cut last week against Olaf Alfonso. Yes, you read that right, Olaf not only scored a punch, but cut somebody, and held on for a decision win against Phil Baroni. So, we will not get to see Phil Baroni strut, throw bombs or just be an asshole in general. 

The show kicks off eventually with two young, inexperienced fights, Tyler Toner facing off with a debuting Ricky Johnson. Both guys are hometown boys, so there really shouldn’t be any complaining about the altitude like there are in the later fights. Johnson doesn’t look so great, he is just sorta throwing hard punches hoping to connect and knock him out, while Toner is actually putting together combinations. Toner rocks him with knees, but doesn’t follow up, and slipss,  hitting a high kick on Johnson, landing into a shoddy guillotine by Johnson. Matt Hume is more or less making fun of Toner in a solemn voice whenever he throws anything. Toner knees Johnson to the ground and starts throwing some GnP from Johnson’s guard. Toner stands up to pass Johnson’s guard, and starts pounding on him, then takes his back to go for a choke, Johnson rolls into Toner’s mount and gets pounded out. Not too bad.

Michelle Watterson vs. Tyler Parker is the second fight. Watterson is a former Hooters waitress who calls herself the “Karate Hottie.” Yeah. Well, she more or less just clocked Parker, took her down and choked her out. Fair enough. The inexperienced undercard continues with a debuting Carlos Zevellos against Andre Walker. Walker pretty much smashes Zevellos’ face for most of the early going, which more or less tired him out two minutes into the first round. No shit. The altitude may be affecting them sucking, says Matt Hume. Zevellos keeps throwing knees that look like love taps, and Zevellos reverses a lazy takedown, mounts him and lovingly starts pounding him. I say lovingly as he really is doing like Pe de Pano level of ground and pound and the ref stops it. Walker should not be allowed to ever wear Melvin Manhoef-style trunks ever again.

Undefeated Billy Evangelista had a pretty awesome brawl with Luke Caudillo. It was back and forth, with Caudillo winning most of the first, but Evangelista more or less just took it to Caudillo for the rest of the fight, but unable to finish him off. The fight more or less was just three rounds of them on their feet, with Evangelista pulling off the decision. Evangelista actually looked pretty impressive and could be somebody to look out for in a major league in the future if he can string together a decent ground game.

Pete Spratt is just sort of a sad case. Everybody wants to root for Pete Spratt, but it is hard, when you have to figure that Spratt’s real “secret weapon” is his ability to tap out to submission holds, and even then, it is no secret. I’m not taking anything away from Donnie Liles, as he looked good, but on the feet Spratt looked good, looked like he might be able to pull himself together and get a win, and then he got choked out. I don’t know if I’d blame conditioning like Hume did, claiming that Spratt was just tired as much as Spratt really sucking ass on the ground.

Frank Trigg ground out a decision against Falaniko Vitale. Trigg actually pulled together a lot of good combinations in the first, stringing together punches, elbows and the occasional knee strike. It got to the point where he had Vitale against the cage and was just pummeling him with elbows. Round 2  and 3 is essentially just Trigg outboxing Vitale again, with a few takedowns to pull together enough points for the dominant win. Matt Hume keeps calling it a ‘tactical win.’ Frank Trigg says he kept it on the feet, but that he still “hits like shit.” At least he is honest.

The main event is a rematch between Duane “Bang” Ludwig, who we last saw being dispatched by Takanori Gomi back in March. Morgan actually holds a win over Ludwig, but I really don’t know if anybody sees a repeat of that tonight. This fight starts off with Morgan getting outclassed on his feet. Great body shot and hook by Bang, he is just sorta pummeling Morgan on the ground from his guard and Morgan taps out at the onslaught. Great endcap for this fight. On a replay, he drops him with a sick liver punch, lands a hook to get him down and just pummels his face in until he taps out.